Psychological Sciences Spotlight - June 2016

Dr. Kimberly Kirkpatrick, Professor of Psychological Sciences and Director of the Reward, Timing and Decision Laboratory, received a four-year $1.35M renewal of her NIMH R01 award to study interventions to mitigate impulsive choice in a rat pre-clinical model. Impulsive choice is a trait variable that is linked with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), drug use and abuse, gambling, and obesity, as well as a several other diseases and disorders. Targeted neurocognitive time-based interventions were developed in the previous project period by improving time processing or reward processing. The proposed studies will use the neurocognitive interventions to further delineate the nature of deficits in impulsive choice, and to increase the translational efficacy of the interventions for ultimate application in humans with disordered impulsive choice.